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182 thoughts on “Contact Us”

Dear Ms.Cassiday,
Your blog looks nice.
I like that your students>
are happy while learning.
I’m a public primary school teacher in South Korea. When you have time, please visit my blog.
koreankidsenglish.wordpress.com
I hope you have a wonderful time with your students through the year.
Regards,
Mrs.Jang

I am a Design Coach for Lewisville ISD near Dallas, Texas. Our district is moving toward implementing eportfolios for all students. I would love to chat with you about your experiences and challenges with eportfolios. I can’t wait to hear back from you! I have not been this excited in a long time. Your site and student pages are amazing!!! Great work!

I am a kindergarten teacher in Liberty, MO. My assistant principal shared the link to your site with our building. I am also interested in your work with ePortfolios. Your site is quite inspiring. I am hoping to make a greater web presence this school year with my students.

Thanks for your comment, Donna. I’m thrilled to know that you are considering working with ePortfolios. I hope you will let me know how that goes.
Using blogs for ePortfolios is actually a topic that I speak about fairly often. You can see the resources that I use in my digital handout here: http://kathycassidy.com/presentations/digital-portfolios/ If you have access to iPads, you might also be interested to read the free Muliti Touch Book that I wrote about how I use iPads, a few apps and student blogs to create digital portfolios. You can find it by clicking on the “One Best Thing” book cover on the right hand side of the link I mentioned.
Good luck!

Hi Mrs. Cassidy,
I am a grade 2 teacher in Rhode Island and I really enjoyed your blog. I am wondering what video service you are using because I love the photo frames within the video. Thanks for sharing your classroom with the world!

Hello Sari I am a Head Start teacher in the United States. I am reaching out to teachers in other parts of the world to learn and to share ideas and stories about the children. I attend Walden university.

Hello Ms. Cassidy,
I’m not sure if this went through, so I’ll add it to the comments section too! (Sorry if it’s duplicated!)
I’m wondering how you go about having such young students create individual blogs. I chose one blog template for all my students last year and wonder if we really have the “time” to individualize ours this year. Is it because you can use your iPads in the classroom? (Iâ��m sooo jealous!) We go into the computer lab 3 times a week, and we have 2 desktop computers in our classroom. Any suggestions for me?

Yes, I set the blogs up for the students with all the same template as well. I am open to their changing it, but haven’t yet mentioned that this is possible. Instead, I have let them individualize with a picture and their own pet. Other widgets MAY be in the future.
The iPads really are wonderful. Edublogs has an app that lets each of the children blog, add images and add video with minimal support. Some of the students can do it themselves already. We have only had the iPads for a short while though, and my students have had individual blogs/portfolios for coming up to eight years now.
Two computers make it possible to do things in the classroom–it just means taking turns. If you get three periods each week in the computer lab, I would use those periods for the students to blog.

Ms. Cassidy,
I am currently attempting to begin the process of utilizing blog-based student learning portfolios when I came across your student blogs. I was viewing Deion’s blog, and was amazed and enthralled at the technology utilized to capture his learning and post it to his blog. Could you share the program you use to complete this task? Your students and your teaching are phenomenal! I look forward to you response with great anticipation! Thanks, in advance, for your help.

Jimmy, my class is fortunate to be one to one with iPads. All of the artifacts that you see on Deions’s blog have been done with an iPad. We have used drawing apps, and an app called ShowMe besides the regular camera on the iPad. It isn’t necessary to have iPads to have learning portfolios. Here http://classblogmeister.com/blog.php?user_id=1337&blogger_id=349406 you can see a portfolio of one of my students from last year. We only had iPads for the last six weeks of the year. The rest was done on a computer.

I am just beginning to set up a blog and blogs for my 3rd grade students. I teach 3rd grade in West Virginia (United States) and would love to collaborate with you about communication/technology ideas. I have never “skyped” but would love to try it.

Hello! I am an Arts Education student from Regina Sask visiting your blog! Looks like you guys have alot of great things going on in your class and I thought I would just send this message and let you know I was here on your site!! Take care.

Hi Kathy – Wasn’t able to use your contact us form, so I’m trying here! I’ve recently started reading your blog and think that the work you are doing is exciting! I’m writing on behalf of ePals, a safe social learning network that offers free streamlined classroom matching, upgraded collaboration tools, a comprehensive project library and top-quality content from trusted educational brands.
Because of the collaborative work you are doing in your classroom, I’m curious to know if you or any fellow teachers have used ePals in the classroom. ePals facilitates authentic, project-based learning for kids K-12 all over the world, which is at the heart of the work you are doing with your class.

If you’re interested in sharing ePals resources with your readers, please let me know. I would be happy to tell you more about our Global Community, which facilitates learning for classrooms across the globe.

Your blog is amazing! Wow!
Keep up the great work! I am excited to learn new ways to incorporate technology with my first grade students in Waterford, Connecticut. Seeing what you are doing is very inspiring!

I just wanted to tell you that your blog is amazing! I think it is such a great way to teach your students—they don’t just learn about technology, but how to use the technology as a tool for publishing, communication and information! This is such a progressive way to teach that will only help the kids in the future. I aspire to be as innovative a teacher as you! Thanks!

I found your blog while searching the internet for webblogs in other countries. I think I’ve spent more than an our to read the entries on your old and new blog and found them very inspiring. I love getting insight into how fellow teachers work, wether they be german, british, american, … I always find something to learn from them.

I really like your classroom and I was quite a bit jealous (in a positive way, not malicious) about how technologically advanced your classroom is. Smartboard? Ipads?

Something like that you won’t find here in Germany… we’re lucky to have two old computers in each classroom and one classroom with 20 computers. One classroom will get a smartboad in January, though!

I added the address of your Classroom blog on my Classroom Blog’s website, so my pupils may see, that there are other pupils in other countries and how the learn. I hope you don’t mind.

Hello Mrs. Cassidy,
I’ve just recently discovered your wonderful classroom Blog. I myself am a Kindergarten Teacher in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. My class is called the Berry Bunch , for obvious reasons. I have 24 very extraordinary 5-6 year olds that love school and technology. We would love to start to communicate with you and your students. We wish yo a very happy and healthy New Year and hope we will hear back from you in the the near future. Until then,
Best regards,
Jeffrey Berry

Dear Mrs. Cassidy and Class,
Wow — what a wonderful tool you have for learning and sharing together in your blog. I’m wondering how you worked out the confidentiality/release of information details with students’ families and your school district to make such sharing possible. I’d like to learn from how you did it. Thank you for sharing with all of us!

I am a primary teacher from Sydney, Australia. Currently I work as a casual teacher in a number of schools. I am studying part-time on my Masters. Recently I have been researching how various schools use social media in an interactive way.

I am just starting the credential program and came accross your class blog. I love the class and everything you are doing. I have so much to learn, but am so excited about teaching. This is a second career for me. It has always been my dream to teach. I look forward to following your class.

Hi Mrs. Cassidy,
You have really inspired me as a fellow primary teacher about all the things I plan to do with my class too! I’m working on my Master’s in Educational Technology and pushing boundaries in my community to get everyone to try new things! This year, I started a class blog that has a primary purpose to share information with the parents about what we are working on for the week; test dates, etc. Do you have something similar? It looks as though your blog is primarily to show what you have already learned. What’s your take on it?
Looking forward to hearing some of your thoughts!
Thanks,
Elizabeth Gooldhttp://www.missgooldsclass.com

Hi Elizabeth,
Just as all people are different, all blogs are different as they reflect the personality of the person who creates it. What you are doing is fine. There are no rules. Good luck with blogging!

My name is Jess and I am currently completing my last year of university to become an Early Childhood Teacher. I came across your blog and it is great to see how simple and organised this is (and of course each student’s blog pages too!).

When I have my own class here in Australia I will be setting up a blog myself and would love to engage in the skype sessions as your class does!

Hello Ms. Cassidy and Class,
I was at one of your sessions in Toronto at the Reading For the Love of it conference. It was wonderful to see all your primary students doing so many wonderful exciting things in your classroom and sharing them on your blog.
Keep up the great work.
Next year I plan to start my own site with my class.
Thanks for sharing all your wonderful ideas.

I am also a Canadian Teacher blogger and I have set up a Blog by Province linky. I have not been able to find any Saskatchewan teacher bloggers…but then I came across YOU! I would like to invite you to link up your blog at http://teachingisagift.blogspot.ca/p/blog-by-province.html. Also, if you know of other teacher bloggers from your province who would like to link up, please consider forwarding them this information.Teachingisagift

We are about to embark on a whole school blogging journey…with mixed emotions from staff. Also many discussions about whether the younger children can actually “do it”. Thanks for sharing your blog and showing how successful young learners can be when they have the right support.

Hi Ms. Cassidy and Class,
We are a kindergarten class in Central Michigan and we are trying to connect with other classrooms all over the world. We are also starting to use twitter. We would love to connect with your class. If this is possible, please contact us at:jsian@harrisonschools.com. We love your blog and it looks like you like to use technology as much as we do. Our class website is: mission.weebly.com We would love to hear from you!

I am a University student from Regina and I am about to start teaching. Your blog is great! It looks like you are learning so much this year. I hope that I can blog with my class too when I begin teaching.

Blogging relationships develop over time and do not happen automatically. You could start with this list of primary blogs. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1VMTswZqDkOYA95Fjw5x_vVJUOocsYPduigdhLOBy8JU/edit Linked from each of them will be other primary blogs. Try commenting on other blogs as a class until your students are able to do it independently. Comment without expecting to get comments back. Some classes will comment back, and you can begin to build a blogging community.

Hello Mrs. Cassidy,
What a wonderful site. I am studying to be a primary teacher in Australia and I was wondering if it would be okay if I took a snapshot of your blog for my assignment on the use of ICTs in the classroom. I would also like to hyperlink the snapshot to your blog.

It won’t be used outside of university and your classroom will get credit for the blog’s picture.

Hello! i am a student at the University of Central Florida. i am writing a research paper about how preschool affects children! i was wondering if you could help me by taking a quick survey. there is one for teachers that have children in their class and the other is for parents who have children who have attended preschool. Please help me out

Hi. Ms. Cassiday. I really enjoyed your blog. Your students look very happy and eager to learn. Your website was very easy to follow and the pictures were engaging. I like the idea that you had your student tweet with their ipads information from the fairy tale movie they were watching. Such a great way of showing students the positive side of using twitter. I am currently a student who will one day become a teacher. Your site motivated me to keep going so that I may teach children to learn as well. Keep up the good work.

This is so cool. I’ve been teaching elementary for 26 years. I’m currently the K-6 technology teacher trying to build a curriculum from scratch. I’m looking for any help I can get. What an awesome use of technology. Your kids are luck to have you 🙂

Thanks, Jerry. I have no “technology” curriculum as it is part of what we do, but I’m sure there must be some available online that would keep you from reinventing what has already been done.
Good luck!

What a wonderful blog you have. I love reading your posts. I have recently purchased Ms. Cassidy’s book and I am amazed by all your real world learning! I teach in a K-5 elementary school in Lexington, South Carolina. I am studying to be a Library Media Specialist and hope to work with one of my K teachers next year to begin blogging. You are giving me some wonderful inspiration!

I see a lot of beautiful work put into this blog. I simply love it. it is much better than the other teachers blogs out there! I was going to do something similar next year but to high-school students, using GIF and animation-heavy techniques for homework and stuff. Highschool girls would unfortunetly get bored from posting everyday stuff like that. also it is only English subject, not the whole homeroom. do you have any suggestions to add?

Hello! I am a first grade teacher in Oregon. Our school will have iPads in the classroom this year and I’d really LOVE to have the students blog. Can you let me know how you get each kiddo on, or what time in your day you dedicate to the blogs?
Thanks!

Hi Nicole,
Both KidBlog and Edublogs have apps that allow the students to log into their blog right on the iPads. I don’t dedicate a specific time to blogging. Blogging is how we share what we are learning and can happen at any time during the day. If you are just starting out, though, you may want to have your blogs just as writing blogs. In that case, blogging could happen during your writing time each day, or once each week or whatever you decide.
I hope that helps. Let me know if you have more questions.

Hello,
I loved reading your blog. I recently started one with my class. You can visit it at: http://kidblog.org/MorgadosClass/. I am hoping to read your book over the summer to get even more great ideas! I also hope to get going on the twitter so if you are interested in starting a partnership with my class let me know. We are a grade 2/3.

I am fortunate that my school division has a a form that goes home the first day of school that covers parental permission. You can see it here: http://www.prairiesouth.ca/staff/forms.html Click on Students and then on Student Privacy/Media release.

Hello! I love your student blogs and I hope to start this in my own classroom this year. I was wondering what program you used to make the online books? One group made a book about wolves. Thank you so much!!

Hi Jerry,
It is fairly easy in Edublogs (on a computer) to set up all of the student blogs. If you have difficulty, there is an extensive help section on their main site.
Edublogs also has an app that the students can each log into. They can then type or add items directly from the photos app.
I hope that helps!

Hi
,
I Love, Love, Love your blog! I’m a grade one teacher in Brooks Alberta and I am interested in setting up a blog and twitter for my class. Can you email me? I’d be intereted in our classes talking and visiting blogs electonically if you’re interested?

It’ so exciting to see all of the great work that you have been doing through your blog! Looks like you have really been keeping busy in First Grade! I can’t wait to share all of your hard work with my second graders! They’re all very excited to be starting their first blogs, too! Keep up the great work!!

I really enjoyed your blog “mystery number.” I thought it was a fun and creative way to incorporate learning, technology, and social interaction all into one lesson. You are allowing your students to step out of the norms of traditional pencil and paper learning. I teach Kindergarten and this is something I know my students would also enjoy. I am looking forward to seeing if I could incorporate a lesson like mystery numbers into my lessons.

Wonderful blog! I love the fact that every student has their own blog spot. Do the students in the class learn how to post these blogs or do you post each of them? I would be interested in learning more about how you use this in your classroom. It’s a great way for students to share their work!

Hi Gina,
Yes the students use their iPads to post their own work. At this time of year, I give lots of support, but as time goes on, they begin to do it independently. Yes, I love the way students can use iPads to share their learning. You can see more about the way we use blogs as digital portfolios in these posts on my professional blog. http://kathycassidy.com/category/digital-portfolios-2/

PLEASE take this site down or remove the student’s names and pictures. You are have put this out in a public place!!! You have provided a predator the name of the school, the name of the student, their favorite character to talk to them about. YOU are putting them in danger. PLEASE remove the photos including their art work. I should not know that Adam likes Mario!

Thank you for your comment. You clearly care enough about children to comment and I respect that.

I take the safety of my students very seriously. We regularly talk about how they can keep themselves safe in many different situations. Being online is just one more place they need to learn to be safe.

Yes, I do post pictures of my students online. If you notice, I post pictures of the students only on MY blog, where there are no names ever attached. The students’ FIRST names are attached to their own blog, but you will never see a photo of the student on their own blog, or their last name. (In fact, I know of blogs in which the teachers do, with the parents’ permission, identify the children by name, but that is not my policy.)

I teach my students carefully about what is appropriate to put online and what is not. They quickly learn how to take photos and make videos that do not show faces so that they can be posted on their blog. When we read comments together, they soon learn to point out if a parent has accidentally included a last name and together we delete that comment before it is posted for the world to see.

It is true that Adam likes Mario. So does every other boy and some of the girls in my classroom. I’m sure this holds true for most six-year-olds.

Although no negative thing has ever happened because of our blog, many wonderful things have happened.

Because of our blog, the parents of my students are able to watch their child’s learning and as the parents leave comments (which are an integral part of our reading instruction) they become part of the learning as well. Grandmas and grandpas, aunts and uncles, older siblings and other friends drop by just to see what is happening, and may leave a comment as well. My students beam with pride as the comments, written just for them, are read aloud.

Because of our blog, my students have an audience. They look at the tiny dots on our Clustr map and know that even if people are not commenting, people are seeing what they are posting. An audience is a powerful motivator for people of any age. Writing for a real audience is so much more powerful than writing something in a notebook that only your teacher will see.

Because of our blog, we sometimes have comments from people we have never met, but who are cheering my students on as they are learning. These comments send us to a map to find out where in the world Texas, or Romania or Ontario is and then leads to other serendipitous learning and perhaps to a face-to-face meeting through a videoconference of some kind.

Because of our blog, we sometimes get videos or items in the mail from people in far away places. These unexpected treasures lead to even more learning, particularly about empathy and understanding of people who live differently than we do.

Because of our blog, my students are leaning about digital literacy. In a safe environment, with me to guide them, they are learning what it is appropriate to put online and what is something that should be kept private. They are beginning to create a positive digital footprint. The Internet is here to stay, and I would prefer that my students learn about online etiquette and safety than to leave this learning to chance.

I’m not sure if you know this, but hundreds (probably thousands) of teachers are now doing the same thing as me—sharing the learning in their classroom online through classroom blogs, Twitter accounts or Facebook pages.

I hope that you can see the positive impact this new way of learning has had on my classroom. Just as with anything new I do in my classroom, I weigh the benefits against any possible risk or difficulties. With the safety features I have built into the blogging process in our classroom and the ongoing discussions I have with the children, there is no contest. Blogging has opened too many doors for us.

Hi! I am an author of a book series for 6-8 yr old children. This is new as of 9-7-13, but took 20 yrs for me to have it published. My series has the underlying message of positive thinking, don’t give up attitude, people help without asking. The books average 30 pages, and are mysteries/short stories, most involve pets, always have a happy ending. I have been searching for blogs to spread the word about them. They are available on amazon.com kindle version. The first book is titled “Millie’s Lost Adventure”. I would love to talk about this on your blog! I am on lynnsgirlsbooks.wordpress.com. Thank you !!!

Hi Kathy,
Wow. Just like the others before I want to commend you on your blog. I am a Grade 2 teacher from a small community in Alberta and am also the tech lead for my school. I don’t feel like I have been leading well as I haven’t seen the need for a blog until I saw yours!
I’ve already set up mine and look forward to sharing it with my munchkins.
I do have a question though. What program/app did you use for the ‘Crocodiles’ story that Zak did? I think it would be great for an upcoming research project that my kiddos will be doing.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Kelly

I found the answer in an earlier post. I am so thrilled to introduce this idea of blogging with my Grade 2 students. I am nervous about sharing too much too soon. I’ll try to just show what I’ve posted and have them post comments with me. Maybe in a few weeks I will let them start posting on their own.

I am very impressed by this blog and the things that go on in your classroom and school. I love the amount of technology being used across the whole curriculum. Your students appear to be very responsible with the devices and with their own learning. I will continue to follow this blog to gain ideas and the share ideas. I too have a blog that provides teachers with technology resources. http://www.zuliekafurahaali.com/. Thank You!

What a great way to connect your students to other countries around the world! I am a grade 1 teacher(6 year olds) from Australia. How do you connect to other schools safely? Is it through a set up education site?

Hi Brooke,
No, I don’t use a set up education site for finding classrooms to Skype with. I usually find other teachers on Twitter or through their classroom blogs. If you are just starting out, you might want to check out http://education.skype.com/. Registering is free and you can search for others who are your grade level. If you were referring to our blog, I use Edublogs, which is set up specifically for teachers to use with their classes. I love it!
I have been doing this for a long time–so long that I wrote a book about it. 🙂 http://shop.plpnetwork.com/connectedkids/

You have a wonderful site. I am a technology specialist in my district and want to share your site with other teachers to show them the potential of using technology with a class. Thanks for all your hard work.
Jeff Hallhttp://www.techno-rebel.com

I’m an education student at Brandon University, investigating how kids can express and extend learning through blogging. It looks like your students have been doing some very good work and having a lot of fun!

I just wanted to take the time to say THANK-YOU! I am currently studying to be a primary school teacher in AUSTRALIA and as apart of an ICT course I am undertaking we were required to find a teacher who is sharing online their learning and teaching with ICT in the classroom. I stumbled across your weblog and have found it soooo beneficial to my learning about learning! I have made reference to your blog through my blog http://kathleenmccallum.wordpress.com/2014/03/20/ms-cassidys-classroom-blog/.

I very much look forward to becoming a teacher in the not so distant future and aim to achieve all that you have achieved through your classroom blog.

Dear Ms Cassidy’s class,
Wow! What an amazing blog you guys have. My 3/4 class in Duchess, Alberta is just starting our individual blogs and learned lots from reading yours. We love how you add pictures and movies to show us how to count and make pancakes. We had pancakes at school last week, but we didn’t get to make them. Our school does a green pancake breakfast for St Patricks day.
Thanks for showing us your blogs.
Mrs. Grosfieldhttp://marggrosfield.edublogs.org

I am an educator in West Vancouver, BC and I plan to share your website with a team of teachers in Saanich, BC. We are learning more about student questioning and how teachers can support rich inquiry. Which videos do you think BEST showcase your inquiry skills? Thank you SO much for sharing your learning– I think you are remarkable!
I look forward to hearing from you!

Hi Misty,
I can’t think of any videos my students or I have made about the inquiry process. I’d be happy to share some examples of final video projects at the end of a unit of inquiry if that would help.

Kathy,
I am a 4th grade teacher in Oregon and you have inspired me to create an Edublog. I already have done a Weebly class website and a wikispace for our reading curriculum, but your Edublog is awesome! I have 27 students and 17 iPads that we share. I LOVE how each student has their own learning page (I did the same thing for my students). My hope is to allow my students to demonstrate their thinking just like yours are doing but I am having some technical difficulties that I was hoping you would have time to help me with.

How do you get all the students’ videos embedded on their website? The only way I have been able to, is to upload my video to Vimeo and then get the embed code (which would mean all my students would have access to my account which could get overwhelming). Where do you have the students save their video so it has an embed code?

Hi Jen,
The wonderful Edublogs app with an Edublogs Pro account makes the embed code for us!! We just save whatever we make to our photos app and then access it from the Edublogs app. Edublogs hosts the video or picture and creates an embed code right in the students post.

So I just practiced using the Edublog app to embed a video – I was a little nervous when my browser said that it did not support the video, but when I checked, there was my video. Everything that I have read on Edublog states “Videos are embedded in your post in HTML 5 format. Not all web browsers support HTML 5 videos and your video embedded won’t play in those web browsers (e.g. Safari on an iPad and FireFox).” Do you use Safari as your default browser and if so, have you had any problems? It looks like there is a way to get around Safari as the default… I was thinking of switching the default to Chrome. Do you have any advice for me?

Last year, there were issues viewing the videos on the iPads, but there have been no problems this year. I assume this was fixed in one of the iOS updates. I have no problem viewing everything when I use Google Chrome on my computer, but when I use IE on the computers at school some things cannot be seen. Parents have had varying success, depending on which browser and which version they are using. I assume (and I am nowhere close to an expert on this) that all browsers will eventually support HTML 5.

I am an instructional aide in a very small Rural School in California. I work with a very small group of Kinder, first, and second graders, and maybe this year third graders. Because we are so small and have so few kids, we are always looking for a new way to connect with other kids and classes. We have tried to do it locally with other schools in our area, but due to limited technology resources on their end, we have had trouble with that. We would LOVE to get in touch with you and your class throughout the next school year. Some of your games and exploration looks to be right up our alley. Thank you for your time. IF you would like to make a connection, We would love that. We currently use both computers and ipads in the classroom and we DO have the means for some sort of connection!

Thank you for running an amazing blog! I just finished my degree at the U of R in June and am now teaching with Prairie Valley. I really want to give e-portfolios a try as I have had a lot of experience with my own personal blog during university. My question is that I was wondering if you can set one theme for all your students and widgets? Or, do you have to go and edit them each individually. If so, did you do this together with your students or did you do it all on your own? I hope this makes sense.

We’d love to connect with you, too. Although Canada is a bilingual country, there is almost no French spoken in the area of Canada we live in. The children are learning to speak French, but their vocabulary is so far limited to colours, numbers, days of the week, etc.

I teach at the British International School in Manhattan, and am fortunate to work with a team of very positive, proactive staff. All classes have individual websites to showcase their work and we try hard to embrace technology, often having to up-skill ourselves just to keep up with the students! A big hurdle that is often mentioned by staff is the time required to update these websites. As an expert in the field, what would be your top 3 tips for staff?

Hi Rhiannon,
I’m not sure I’m an expert on this, but I do make it work for us. Hmm. Three things. Here goes:

1. We all make time for the things that are important to us. I have decided that updating the blog two or three times a week is one of my priorities. Everyone needs to make this decision for themselves.
2. You do not need to post every day. Set a doable goal for yourself and then stick to it. It is better to post once per week than five times in one week and then not for a month.
3. Have the students do the work. Students can take pictures and write text to show what the class has been up to. This is win/win since not only do the students get to be the ones posting, parents get to see the day through the eyes of a child.
I hope this helps!

Dear Ms. Cassidy,
I love your blog already! I’m sure your students love your class! My class also has a blog and I think you would like it! If you would like to follow us, our web address is bmscareercenter.edublogs.org. Looking forward to seeing more of your blog!
Sincerely,
Lyric
The Creator of Lyric’s Song

Ms. Cassidy, I am truly inspired by your blog. You seem to be doing truly amazing things with your students and I love how invite your students to be so involved with it. Anyways, the reason I am writing is because I am in a reading education class at The University of Tennessee. One of our assignments is to do an inquiry project that has something to do with reading, writing, etc. I chose to do mine on blog use to promote reading and writing in the classroom. It seems like you are finding great ways to do just that and was wondering if you could give me some feedback, details, etc. on your experience. I would really love to know anything you feel like sharing. Thanks, Morgan

I enjoy looking at your blog! You are doing so many exciting things with your class. I was hoping I could use your blog for some examples of 21st century skills within a project I am doing at University?

I love your class, the kids look like they are so happy to be at school and be learning in a fun and exciting classroom! I am currently in the education program at Carroll College, I was wondering if their is any tips or tricks of how you make your classroom fun that you can give me! Thank you!!

Making your classroom interesting entirely depends on what you are teaching and what you as a teacher are interested in/comfortable with. I can’t give you a list to help with this. The wonderful thing about the sharing that is happening online with education is that you only have to search online to see what other teachers have done and to get ideas that will work for your students in your classroom. Good luck with your teaching career!

Hello Ms. Cassidy’s class! I am also a teacher of a class of six year olds but not in Canada. I teach at the Franconian International School in Germany. My teaching partner and I are thinking about starting up a class blog for next school year. Do you, as students, blog from home or during the school day? I just read your tweets about the Easter Bunny and thought the comment about the Easter Bunny playing NHL was pretty funny. Ms. Cassidy, thank you for blogging. For somebody who knows very little about it, where is a good starting point? Do parents and students visit your blog regularly? Do you feel it is helping students reflect on their learning? I only have 3 ipads for a class of 24 students so I am not sure how to make a class blog work. I would love to have student input as you do.

Hi Tara,
My students are allowed to blog from home if they wish. Some do, but most do not. The parents of my students are busy as is everyone, but I know from what they tell me that many of them make time to see what their children have posted. Some comment as well. I do think it is a good way for the students to reflect on their learning, particularly in comparing what they were doing at the beginning of the year as opposed to what they can do now. The difference in what they can do is so very dramatic when students are young and they surprise themselves! As for not having a lot of iPads, you might want to check out this post on my professional blog http://kathycassidy.com/2014/11/11/blogging-in-a-primary-classroom-with-only-one-ipad/. In the post I wrote about an app that I think will solve your problem. I think you will love blogging with your students!

So we have received some new IPads for this school year and we are going to start using Edublogs. Our first grade classes are trying it out first. I am going to use your professional blog posts to assist us in setting everything up 🙂 once it is up and running I’ll contact you and maybe we can have the students do some collaborative work if you are interested. Could be something as simple as pairing up the students and having them comment on each other’s work. Have a great start to your new school year and we’ll be in touch.

Hello, Ms. Cassidy’s Class!
I am a college student who is learning how to become a teacher. I have enjoyed exploring your blog and I can’t wait to read more about your wonderful class. I love what you have created and I bet the parents of your students do too. I plan on creating a blog for my class when I am a teacher in the near future!
For one of my college English courses, I was required to create a blog about a topic of my choice. I chose to blog about what I am most passionate about…teaching! I am currently working with children through my classes, field placements, and work and I love every second of it. I use my blog to share my positive experiences with the children that I work with, I hope you get a chance to check it out! Here is a link to my blog https://theassistantteacherchronicles.wordpress.com/

My name is Leah, and I am an Education student at Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia. I am currently completing a technology class where my group is creating an authentic learning resource that can be shared with other teachers. As a part of our assignment, we have created a Wiki page and designed a lesson around being water wise. Our project will see a class learning about being water wise and creating sustainable water wise practices around the school. The main project will be creating a water wise sustainability blog. I was wondering if you would allow me to put a link on the Wiki page to your class blog? It is a fantastic blog and would be a great example of an established blog. I look forward to hearing from you!

what a great resource you are!!! I’m a reading recovery teacher who works with small groups of k-3rd grade. I’m looking for computer activities/games to spice up my lessons that focus on reading comprehension and grammar.

I love your blog, it’s so great to see the kids enjoying their learning. I’m a primary school teacher in Australia and have a blog for games at school you might be interested in, check it out if you have time between your blogging wizardry

Thanks for creating such a nice blog. I have enjoyed browsing through and getting ideas for a blog I may create one day. I am currently a college student taking a Technology and Classroom Organization class. This has been very beneficial for me.

Hi, I am a grade 1 teacher at The Study School in Montreal, Quebec. My students are leading the school in a 30 Day Mindful Journey starting November 1st. We are asking other schools to join us, but participating in 1 minute of Mindfulness a day. Please email me back if you would like to participate. You can em me at bkurtzman@thestudy.qc.ca

Hi Ms. Cassidy. I am a student in ECE and came across your blog as part of an assignment. I enjoyed reading your ideas and looking at the pictures you compiled to show how much fun different activities can be! I plan on using some of your ideas in my future classroom! Thanks again! Jennifer

My name is Mrs Morgan and I am a teacher of year 1 students in Australia. Our school year starts in late January and finishes in the middle of December. This year I have been working on my very first class blog. I have enjoyed seeing your posts and even though we live in different countries, I can see the similarities in what we are learning to do. Next year I am hoping to get in contact with other schools around the world and share our blogging journey also.
All the best,
Mrs Morgan

One of my classes we had to go through and find some blogs to follow. I came upon yours and I am wanting to teach Kindergarten or 1st grade. Seeing your blog, and the classroom site is something that I hope to add into my future classroom. I also love the fact that each student has a blog and I also really like that you kept their privacy. I look forward to following your blog and I also started following you on twitter.

I am currently working on my education degree and taking courses relating to my specific content. I am in a class that required us to follow a blog. I really love how you have individual pages for your students. I was curious as to how do you have your students post of their pages and how do you deal with a problem such as, a student does not have internet access at home?

Hi Stephanie,
We have iPads in our classroom. They allow the students to take pictures, make screencasts etc of their learning and then upload them to their blogs.
I believe all of my students do have internet access at home in some form, but I don’t ask them to post work from home. Only from school.
Good luck with your studies!

I love looking at your blog! Seeing the students’ individual sites reminds me of the papers I look at in class 🙂 I’m a first year second grade teacher and absolutely loving it. Here’s a little about my last week of school: http://www.littlemomentsbigmemories.com/

Hi Kathy. I’m a first grade teacher from Southern CA (San Diego area), and I’m preparing to introduce my children to blogging this spring. I’m looking for a couple of primary teachers to link up with to comment on each other’s blogs. My students will primarily be adding content on our class blog (through kidblog) via comments. (I’m starting small.) Would you be willing to partner with us or would you know another 1st or 2nd grade teacher who might be interested? We would be able to comment once or twice a month. Please let me know. livans@classicalacademy.com. Thank you so much!

Hello Kathy,
I am an Early Years education student at Brandon University in Brandon, MB. My peers and I are currently taking a course called ICT (Information and Communication Technology in the Classroom) and our professor chose your text Connected from the Start for our class to purchase for the course.
I am 38 years old so I went to school during times of encyclopedias rather than Google and am therefore still gaining confidence and knowledge with technology. After reading Chapter 4 in the text, my professor has asked us to create our own blog on a site called NING. I must be honest, I was not sure what to think or where to start. It all just seemed so overwhelming. The beginnings of your journey with technology remind me very much of my own present journey…how do I overcome my insecurities and not feel so overwhelmed? I feel that if I can overcome this initial roadblock, then it will be much smoother sailing!
I absolutely love your classroom blog and hope that one day I will have one for my classroom as well!

Thanks for your comment, Linda! I’m glad to hear that you are working with technology in your studies and even more excited that you are reading my book!
If you want to have a classroom blog, then I’m sure you will. Good luck with your studies!

Hi Bernadette,
The publishers and I made the decision to only make an eBook, not a paper one. The book has so many hyper-links and videos included that it would be a poor substitute on paper. It is possible to purchase a .pdf copy which I suppose you could print off yourself from here: http://plpnetwork.com/connected-from-the-start-book/. The pdf can be read on any device.

Ms. Cassidy, What a wonderful classroom you have! Thanks for sharing it with the world. I am new to blogging, but recognize just how much time managing this website along with your classroom must take. How do you have time to do it all? Do your students upload their own work or do yourself do it? I think it is great to give students this sense of community both within the classroom and online. Thanks for sharing it.

Thanks for your kind words. We have iPads in our classroom which the students use to create or take a picture of their learning artifacts. The Edublogs app makes uploading these items pretty easy. At the beginning of the year, the students need a lot of support doing this, but as the year progresses they become more independent and are able to do it themselves. I do have to approve everything before it goes online.

Greetings from Pahang, Malaysia. Love your blog, especially that each and every student gets to showcase her/his work. I lived in Saskatoon for a while, and taught in French Immersion as a sub-teacher, while also studying at the University. Great memories…although the climate is very, very different!
Currently I’m helping Malaysian teachers, getting them to use blogs, pages and automated learning and testing tools online. See http://virtualtraineronline.weebly.com

Ms. Cassidy, first of all I wanna thank to you for this wonderful site. I’m a Master’s student and making a research about teachers’ development all over the world. I have a homework about two teachers and their professional development plans and evaluations. Could you help me, please?

Sure. My school division’s professional development plan has rubrics under five domains. If your plan strives for growth in these five areas, you will have a great plan. The domains are Planning and Preparation, the Learning Environment, Instruction, Assessment and Evaluation and Professional Responsibilities.

My name is Karen and I’m a high school student in California. I was wondering if you’ve ever tried incorporating technology into your classroom to help students review or reinforce some classroom concepts. My high school teachers use games like Kahoot and Aquaforces to help us review for quizzes. Maybe it’d be a cool educational activity?

Hi Karen. Thanks for your comment. I have indeed tried incorporating technology to help my students learn a lot of things, but since my students are so young, we don’t use the same tools a high school teacher would. I’m glad you are enjoying what your teacher does with you?

I am a french teacher, my students are about 8 years and live in disavantaged suburbs. I would like to do exchange (letters, gtalk, skype, mailings.. ), to connect with international classroom. If you have a little time for us or know another teacher who would be interested by my research…
L.L

Came across your inspiring blog from a classmate in one of my Master’s courses in the UBC MET program. I love to see the way you utilize technology as a tool to enhance and transform your students’ learning. I look forward to visiting your blog again with my class – especially to show them your winter clothes challenge!

Hi Ms. Cassidy, my name is Kelly Wright and I am a preservice teacher at Brandon University. I came across your blog from recommendation from Dr. Mike Nantais. Your blog is so inspiring for an upcoming teacher. Your students in all the pictures seem to be enjoying everything you do in class especially the mannequin challenge.
I really like the fact that each of your students have their own page and can blog as well. The students seem to be hooked on this. After viewing your blog this has increased my confidence to use blogs in my future classes.
This was a great experience.

Ms. Cassidy,
Your blog really is great. I love that you have so many pictures on your site. I also like the fact that parents can visit your blog and actually see work that their child has done. It really seems that you make learning fun for your students. Also, by connecting them to the real world is extraordinary. By exploring your blog, I have gained confidence to use blogs in my future class. Thanks so much.

Dear Mrs Cassidy,
We are a Grade 3/4 class from Melbourne, Australia and we enjoyed looking at your blog this morning. We loved seeing all of your fun activities. Our favourites were Flashlight Friday, the robots and the Easter eggs. We have robots at our school but we haven’t used them this year. We have a blog if you want to visit it and see our photos and videos
samiddleschool.global2.vic.edu.au
Grade 3/4 children